Cathay Pacific Airways has seen cargo and mail volumes rise by 4.6 per cent in October compared to the same month in 2014 – with traffic boosted by freight to and from India.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair combined handled 163,733 tonnes of cargo and mail in October, while the cargo and mail load factor rose by 1.4 percentage points to 66.5 per cent.

Capacity, measured in available cargo and mail tonne kilometres, rose by 0.8 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown increased by 2.9 per cent.

In the year to the end of October, tonnage rose by 5.5 per cent against a capacity increase of 6.5 per cent and a 6.8 per cent rise in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing, Mark Sutch says: “Demand for airfreight shipments continued to climb as we moved into the traditional peak period. We moved to a full freighter schedule as traffic on the transpacific routes increased and demand to and from India continued to strengthen.

“Our teams worked hard to push up the load factor for both freighters and passenger aircraft belly space; however, overcapacity in the market continued to put pressure on yield. Current indications are that this year’s cargo peak will run through until the end of November.”

In the first 10 months of 2015, the carrier has handled 1.47 million tonnes of cargo, up 5.5 per cent. RTK’s are up 6.8 per cent and the load factor is 63.6 per cent, down by 0.2 percentage points.